Poems by Michelle Morin

Undone

by Michelle Morin

From Canary Spring 2024

Michelle lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a mountainous oasis at the heart of the Great Plains that is sacred to the Lakota Nation. A scant 70 miles wide and 110 miles long, the viability of the area’s forest and watershed is currently threatened by powerful economic interests that include mining, land development, recreation and tourism.

Maybe,
when we are gone,
they will return:
the endangered, the threatened, the lost.

Maybe,
in some distant springtime,
their passing flights
will dim the sun with clouds of wings
that rain their calls
onto lush and undeveloped plains,
where the only thunder
that breaks the barrier of quiet
will be sage grouse
drumming out the rhythm
of life remade.

Maybe,
the myriad descendants of the few
will softly tread on shadow-roads buried deep
beneath the duff of vast and ancient forests,
as they make their way
to drink from vernal pools,
where blue-spotted salamanders
hide the beginnings of their young,
and leopard frogs
sing vespers in praise
of re-creation.

Just maybe,
in ten-thousand centuries,
when the light we made is all undone
and forever lost,
one of them, aroused from sleep
high among the lavish canopies
of boundless jungle,
will gaze into a midnight
made resplendent by the stars
and ask,
“What am I?”